Business Digest July 20, 2012

Boulder County CareConnect, a nonprofit organization that provides safety-net services to seniors and adults with disabilities in Broomfield and Boulder counties, has opened an office inside the Center for People with Disabilities at 615 Main St., Longmont. It will be staffed from 1 to 4 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Nebraska-based Adams Bank and Trust will open its sixth Colorado branch Aug. 20 at 10 Ken Pratt Blvd., Longmont. The bank will have 16 branches in all, with 10 located throughout Nebraska. Colorado branches include one each in Fort Collins, Berthoud and Firestone and two in Colorado Springs. Adams has received final approval from state and federal regulators to open the branch, which will employ six people when it becomes operational. Adams holds $550 million in assets.

Kidrobot, a creator and dealer of limited-edition art toys, apparel and pop-culture accessories, will open its first Colorado retail store in late August, an 800-square-foot space at 1468 Pearl St., Boulder. Kidrobot Inc. moved its corporate headquarters from New York City to Boulder in April 2010.

CLOSINGS

FirstBank Holding Co. has plans to close 12 bank branches — including one in Boulder — and to open three new branches. FirstBank officials plan to close the branch inside the King Soopers grocery store at 1650 30th St. in Boulder. The plan also calls for closure of one branch each in Arvada, Aurora, Beaver Creek, Colorado Springs, Edgewater and Englewood, three branches in Denver and two in Thornton. At the same time, FirstBank officials also plan to open branches in Aurora and Glenwood Springs, and in Chandler, Arizona.

MOVES

The Colorado Red Cross’ disaster relief headquarters for wildfires has been moved from Loveland to the Denver area. The new location at 4400 Kittredge St. in Denver became fully operational July 6. The secure site will remain available to the Red Cross for the duration of fire season.

BRIEFS

Professional cycling team Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda is one of 16 teams chosen to compete in the 2012 USA Pro Challenge, a weeklong Colorado race slated for Aug. 20-26. The former Garmin-Cervelo team is managed by Boulder-based Slipstream Sports LLC. Boulder pro cyclist and team member Tom Danielson took ninth in last year’s Tour de France. The 2011 USA Pro Challenge brought more than $80 million in economic benefit to the state economy, according to estimates. The city of Boulder this year will host a stage of the race, which is planned to end atop Flagstaff Mountain.

Longmont-based DigitalGlobe Inc. (NYSE: DGI), a provider of high-resolution earth imagery, has again met commitments for its EnhancedView contract by completing a series of upgrades to its ground systems. The upgrades were conducted in a collaborative effort with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency during a two-year period and more closely align DigitalGlobe’s security capabilities with those used by the U.S. government. This will enable DigitalGlobe to participate in a broader range of government projects in support of the NGA’s mission.

A series of four posters designed by The Creative Alliance, a Lafayette-based public relations and marketing firm, for Global Aerospace Inc. was featured in the June issue of GD USA magazine. The posters, designed in the style of a 1960s-era movie poster, promote Global Aerospace’s aviation-safety program.

The Innovation Center of the Rockies is partnering with the University of Denver’s Office of Technology Transfer to help commercialize inventions and intellectual property developed by DU researchers. DU chose the Boulder-based nonprofit after a national search, in part because of the center’s roster of volunteer mentors and advisers. The center will provide a program manager who will work closely with DU researchers and the school’s tech-transfer office to translate highly technical material into understandable language, identify potential commercial utility and work with the mentoring team.

Office Depot Inc. (NYSE: ODP), a global provider of office supplies and services, announced that its store in Boulder has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s EnergyStar certification. The certification signifies that the building performs in the top 25 percent of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency and meets energy efficiency performance levels set by the EPA.

CONTRACTS

SurveyGizmo, a Boulder-based developer of survey software, and ReadyTalk, a Denver-based provider of audio and web conferencing and webinar services, have formed a partnership that will incorporate SurveyGizmo’s surveys into ReadyTalk webinars. Marketing teams can use the surveys to determine which webinar users are promising leads for potential sales, and human resources can develop quizzes to improve training and certification programs. SurveyGizmo is a trade name of Widgix LLC. ReadyTalk is a trade name of Ecovate Inc.

Louisville-based Envysion Inc., a provider of Managed Video as a Service, has been selected by Jersey Mike’s Franchise Systems as its video-surveillance provider. Envysion’s video-driven business intelligence will allow operators of Jersey Mike’s Subs to identify and reduce potentially fraudulent transactions such as discounts, no sales, cash returns, cancels and voids that would otherwise erode restaurant-level profitability.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Longmont-based Auction Genius, creator of a heads-up display for online auto auctions, has been acquired by Oak Brook, Illinois-based vAuto, a wholly owned subsidiary of AutoTrader Group Inc. vAuto also announced the roll-out of initial product integrations between the companies. Auction Genius is a web-based software solution for auto dealers buying vehicles at auction.

Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen Inc. has completed its $315 million acquisition of KAI Pharmaceuticals. Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN), which has production facilities in Boulder and Longmont, had agreed in April to buy KAI, a privately owned company based in South San Francisco, California. With the purchase, Amgen gains the rights to KAI’s experimental treatment for chronic kidney disease and continues its strategy of pursuing external transactions to bolster its research-and-development infrastructure.

Broomfield-based database-service provider Datavail Corp. has acquired Seattle-based Blue Gecko. According to terms of the agreement, Datavail is acquiring more than 100 customers, hundreds of projects and employees with additional Oracle expertise. Blue Gecko will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Datavail, with the intent to merge business and technical operations during the next year. Blue Gecko A/S, located in Denmark, was not acquired by and is not affiliated with Datavail, but maintains a commercial relationship with it.

SERVICES

Broomfield-based Level 3 Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: LVLT), has launched a data center service in Latin America. The new service offers customers the flexibility to define their computing needs and pay according to resource use, while guaranteeing resource availability.

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